Rhode Island’s Raimondo Brushes Aside Progressive Challenge

Governor Gina Raimondo was considered vulnerable to Matt Brown’s left-bent challenge. But she won easily.
Photo: Elise Amendola/AP/REX/Shutterstock

In the penultimate primary elections of 2018, in Rhode Island, another Struggle for the Soul of the Democratic Party transpired. But this time there was no victory for progressive insurgents. Incumbent governor Gina Raimondo easily dispatched former secretary of State Matt Brown, and will move on to a general election rematch with Cranston Mayor Lee Fung.

The Harvard-educated former Rhodes Scholar and venture capitalist also seemed to epitomize the sort of technocratic Clinton-era centrist that many of today’s progressives blame for ruining the Democratic Party. Raimondo earned the ire of public-sector unions and many progressive activists by advocating (as state treasurer and then as governor) state pension reforms that included a shift from defined benefits to defined contributions, the prevailing private-sector trend.

Brown, backed by Justice Democrats and promising to reverse many of Raimondo’s policies, called her “probably the most extreme corporatist Democrat in the country.” In a state with a tradition of strong grassroots progressive activism, and with no public polling to indicate otherwise, an upset seemed entirely possible. But Raimondo, who vastly outspent Brown, won by a 57/34 margin.

The incumbent is not home free, though. In 2014 she won by a plurality over Fung with a quirky third-party candidate winning 22 percent. This time the most prominent independent candidate is a Trump supporter. But one of the few public polls shows her with a narrow lead over Fung, who won a primary over a rival criticizing his insufficient conservatism.

By winning her primary, Raimondo became the 13th woman — and the 11th Democratic woman — to win a gubernatorial nomination this year. That will likely be the final number unless Cynthia Nixon pulls off a miracle in New York tonight.

#BREAKING: I’m told the entire @BPDAlerts Emergency Response Team has resigned from the team, a total of 57 officers, as a show of support for the officers who are suspended without pay after shoving Martin Gugino, 75. They are still employed, but no longer on ERT. @news4buffalo

In case you were wondering about the unmarked federal agents dotting Washington

Few sights from the nation’s protests in recent days have seemed more dystopian than the appearance of rows of heavily armed riot police around Washington, D.C., in drab military-style uniforms with no insignia, identifying emblems or names badges. Many of the apparently federal agents have refused to identify which agency they work for. “Tell us who you are, identify yourselves!” protesters demanded, as they stared down the helmeted, sunglass-wearing mostly white men outside the White House. Eagle-eyed protesters have identified some of them as belonging to Bureau of Prisons’ riot police units from Texas, but others remain a mystery.

The images of such heavily armed, military-style men in America’s capital are disconcerting, in part, because absent identifying signs of actual authority the rows of federal officers appear all-but indistinguishable from the open-carrying, white militia members cos-playing as survivalists who have gathered in other recent protests against pandemic stay-at-home orders. Some protesters have compared the anonymous armed officers to Russia’s “Little Green Men,” the soldiers-dressed-up-as-civilians who invaded and occupied western Ukraine. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent a letter to President Donald Trump Thursday demanding that federal officers identify themselves and their agency.

To understand the police forces ringing Trump and the White House it helps to understand the dense and not-entirely-sensical thicket of agencies that make up the nation’s civilian federal law enforcement. With little public attention, notice and amid historically lax oversight, those ranks have surged since 9/11—growing by roughly 2,500 officers annually every year since 2000. To put it another way: Every year since the 2001 terrorist attacks, the federal government has added to its policing ranks a force larger than the entire Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).